Episode 7: Building a Brand - Case Study with Ian MacDonald (Founder, Liquidity Wines)

A highly accomplished marketing expert and original founder of award-winning Liquidity Wines (Okanagan Falls, British Columbia), Tania’s guest Ian MacDonald shares his story about building a new winery from the ground up. Under Ian’s leadership, Liquidity Wines transformed an insolvent vineyard site into a premium winery brand and world class integrated wine travel destination before being purchased by a larger market player less than ten years after Liquidity opened its doors. Tania and Ian discuss creating the vision for your product, assembling your team to help you achieve that vision, pursuing organic growth for your business, setting production levels, considering pricing models, and most importantly, how to connect with consumers through experience and story to achieve brand retention and market differentiation. Thinking of getting into the winery game? Ian has a few tips for you. Tania and Ian also discuss what the future of wine exploring could look like in British Columbia given our extremely challenging recent vintages, acute weather events, climate swings, and the current trend of less wine being consumed globally. And as you’ll also hear in this episode, you don’t need an MBA to crush it in the business world. (For an additional, more detailed discussion about Ian MacDonald’s hands-on life training to develop branding and marketing expertise across a range of sectors (including the ski world and the Olympics), check out the March 15, 2023 episode (“Après Ski”) of Little Kitchen Academy’s “Meet Me in the Kitchen” Podcast).